Analysis of adulterants in a traditional herbal medicinal product using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-mass spectrometry

Adulterations with synthetic drugs are common problems with herbal medicine and this can potentially cause serious adverse effects. It is therefore important to determine the presence of synthetic drugs in herbal medicine to ensure patients' safety. The objective of this study was to develop sensitive and specific methods to analyse phenylbutazone, caffeine and oxyphenbutazone present in a traditional Indonesian herbal product. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) methods in the selected reaction-monitoring (SRM) mode were developed. It was found that the sample contained 0.53% w/w (n = 3, RSD = 7.56%) phenylbutazone and 0.04% w/w (n = 3, RSD = 8.39%) caffeine. This corresponded to 43.17 mg phenylbutazone and 3.23 mg caffeine in each sachet of powder. The methods were validated for linearity, precision, accuracy, LOD and LOQ. LOD and LOQ were found to be 3.69 and 12.29 ng/ml, respectively for phenylbutazone. For caffeine, the LOD and LOQ were 0.84 and 2.80 ng/ml, respectively. Oxyphenbutazone in the sample was found to be present at a level below the quantification level of 10.2 ng/ ml. With better methods developed for analysis of adulterants in herbal medicine, the quality and safety of these medicines can be better controlled and regulated to ensure patients' safety. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.